Total Recall

As you age, your brain’s hard drive fills up. Use these daily tricks from mind-mapping expert and author of Use Your Head and Master Your Memory, Tony Buzan to double your capacity.

 

Coloured Memories

Picture your car keys in purple stripes when you put them down, helping the image stick. “It makes use of your hippocampus, which handles spatial navigation – and increases your available memory storage,” says Buzan.

 

See the Signs

To recall facts and numbers, imagine a familiar journey where you mentally superimpose them on to signposts along your route. “This links your logical left and creative right hemispheres, instantly increasing your memory space,” says Buzan.

 

List and Learn

“Turn sequences into a narrative,” says Buzan. “So, to remember the Sun is next to Mercury, picture a thermometer getting so hot next to the Sun that it explodes and mercury pours out. (What you use to memorise Uranus is your own business.)

 

 

Words by Jon Axworthy. Illustration by Spooky Pooka at Debut Art.

 

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